Book description
In 1993, teenagers Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie
Misskelley, Jr. - who have come to be known as the West Memphis Three
- were arrested for the murders of three eight-year-old boys in
Arkansas. The ensuing trial was marked by tampered evidence, false
testimony, and public hysteria. Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced
to life in prison, while eighteen-year-old Echols, deemed the
'ringleader,' was sentenced to death. Over the next two decades, the
three men became known worldwide as a symbol of wrongful conviction
and imprisonment, with thousands of supporters and many notable
celebrities calling for a new trial. In a shocking turn of events, all
three men were released in August 2011. Now Echols shares his story in
full - from abuse by prison guards and wardens, to portraits of fellow
inmates and deplorable living conditions, to the incredible reserves
of patience and perseverance that kept him alive and sane while
incarcerated for nearly two decades.
Damien Echols was born in 1974 and grew up in Mississippi,
Tennessee, Maryland, Oregon, and Arkansas. At age eighteen, he was
arrested along with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley and charged
with the deaths of three boys, now known as the Robin Hood Hill
murders, in West Memphis, Arkansas. Echols received a death sentence
and spent almost eighteen years on Death Row, until he, Baldwin, and
Misskelley were released in 2011. Echols is the author of a
self-published memoir titled Almost Home. He and his wife, Lorri
Davis, live in New York City.
